THE BOW HAND | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
Placing your bow hand on your bow is counterintuitive. In other words, it’s the opposite of what you are used to doing and that makes it difficult to learn. Learning to “refuse to control” is the opposite of everything we do all day long but that is exactly what we must do in order to get consistent and accurate archery results. PURPOSE So what exactly is the purpose of the bow hand? What are we supposed to do with our hand when we put it on the bow’s grip section? The answer is simple: place the hand on the bow in a manner that allows the arm bones to resist the force-loads of the drawn bow.
most consistent way to resist this initial action of the bow handle. Bending your arm at the elbow recruits a far greater number of muscle groups than does keeping it straight. Try standing with your knees bent for five minutes to feel how many more muscle groups become active and, of course, how much these muscles fatigue. Your bow arm undergoes the same fatigue if you use lots of muscle to keep it bent while at full draw. Keep your arm efficient by keeping the lower and upper arm bones in line while at full draw and place a relaxed bow hand between them and the handle.
And you thought it was all about the hand, didn’t you? Well, it’s not about the hand; it’s about the arm bones. Just like most of the form elements I teach, bow hand placement is about the skeleton, the body’s core, and how to use it effectively. The bones of the lower and upper arm must be in line so they can resist the bow’s draw force. Liken this to how you use your leg bones all day when you’re on your feet. You use enough muscle – and it’s not much – to keep your leg bones in line between your behind and the floor. You use your leg bones like sticks to keep your butt off the floor so, therefore, use your bow arm in the same way.
The straight bow arm lines up the bones of the lower and upper arm so that they—and not your arm muscles— resist the force of the drawn bow. A straight arm uses very few muscles to hold its position.
BOW HANDLE PHYSICS When the string is released it and the arrow move toward the target but the bow handle moves away from the target according to the law of physics that states: For every action there is and opposite and equal reaction. During the fifteen thousandths of a second (.015 sec.) that the bowstring is moving toward the target the bow handle is pressuring into your bow hand and, therefore, a relaxed bow hand supported by in-line arm bones is the 12 ARCHERY MAGAZINE
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Bend your arm to hold the bow and you recruit all the muscles of your arm to do so and those muscles will fatigue. Repeating your shot routine becomes difficult when your muscles fatigue.
THE TOUCH PAD The lifeline that runs down the palm of your hand separates your hand into two regions for the purpose of archery, the “in-bounds” and the “out-of-bounds”. The thumb pad is the in-bounds portion while the other pad on the little-finger side of the lifeline is the out-ofbounds region. The thumb pad and only this pad should be placed on the grip area of the bow handle. If any other part touches the handle then side torque will occur.
I place a strip of tape on my student’s bow hand to help them actually “feel” the thumb pad. They then need to place this strip on the bow grip section and learn to feel it on the bow. By learning this feeling they can better repeat it while shooting.
The tape strip shown in the illustration is all that should be placed on the bow grip section. This strip must be vertical when the bow is drawn so that it parallels the vertical attitude of the bow handle. It should be obvious that this requires the bow hand to be rotated so the large knuckles are at a forty-five degree angle to vertical. » Once your bow hand is properly set there remains only to relax your fingers and thumb. These appendages must all be relaxed before the bow hand touches the bow grip. No exceptions! If they’re tense when you touch them to the handle they will most likely stay tense through the entire shot sequence. You do not need your fingers and thumb to hold the bow. You should be holding the weight of the bow with your release hand since you’ve already hooked the release to the bowstring. This allows you to keep your bow hand fingers and thumb relaxed at first touch, through the bow raise, during the draw, and through the aiming steps of your form sequence. » Never allowing the fingers to build muscle tension is the best way to have no tension in them at full draw. If you allow tension to build while you raise and draw your bow then you must take extra time at full draw to eliminate it – a step that is near impossible to repeat at a time when we have a more important issue to focus on.
« Letting all of the tension out of your fingers is top priority for my Penn State Archers. Eliminate tension in the thumb and it will point toward the target (foreground). In the background you see lots of tension which can’t be repeated and effects the shot negatively.
» Support the mass of the bow by holding it with your release hand. Use a little “pull-back” force to keep the bow in your bow hand while you raise the bow to the target level. Be sure to keep your fingers and thumb relaxed during these steps.
« Set your bow hand with your wrist set with a medium bend as shown. This position will best place your forearm radius bone between you and your bow. It also helps you keep your drawingforearm muscles relaxed at full-draw.
The wrist should be held in a medium-bend position. This, I feel, minimizes the amount of muscle needed to support the wrist in the optimum angle for presentation to the bow grip. Remember that we’re trying to position the in-line arm bones between the bow and our shoulder but the hand is in the way of this. Therefore, we must place the thumb pad center, directly onto the bow grip continued on page 14 scores, tournament info and more at www.nfaa-archery.org 13